Goddam enormous windbag posts. Oh well I guess that’s what happens when a professional blogger enters the fray. I think this argument needs to return to simple fundamentals. I think everyone agrees electron is more powerfull then aurora. But like it’s host, it basically sux. Continually extolling the virtues of a rival game on a rival forum to try to ‘save us all’ from the horrors of nwn1 is pointless and a circular argument which serves no meaningful purpose other then creating a momentary forum ‘scrap’( which can be fun at times but gets annoying when it keeps dragging on) All positions made clear, this doesn’t have to descend into trench war fare.
Well, in a thread titled NWN:EE vs. NWN2 I think it's safe to say you're invariably going to get some comparison. But the thing is, this comparison can be constructive. I noticed back on the old bioware boards there was a tendency in the NWN community to reflexively hate all things NWN2. And I think some of that has carried over to here.
I always liked both games. I bought the pre-order. I've been playing it and submitting bug reports because I want the game to succeed. Also, I may not personally agree with every design decision made, but I'm a big fan of Beamdog as company and want them to succeed as well.
With all of the in mind, there are things NWN2 did better than NWN like- to take a very non controversial subject t- the ability to auto download the appropriate hak packs when you select a new server. That would be nice to have in EE, and IIRC they've discussed it.
I personally think full party control is something NWN2 has over NWN. I've played through about ten single player modules since I've downloaded EE and in every single one of them I've run into issues, mostly combat related, by completely bone headed henchmen. In today's live stream Trent reiterated his conception of NWN is about friends playing together, not people controlling full parties... But I think the statistics on how people play the game (or the non ES version of it) lean heavily towards the single player experience. You would think, considering Trent's opinion on it, it's not a topic worth discussing, but it has been discussed enough that they added it to the Trello board.
Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it doesn't. But I would say, based on their willingness to even consider it, that it was a constructive conversation.
Goddam enormous windbag posts. Oh well I guess that’s what happens when a professional blogger enters the fray.
Professional? I don't need to make money off a gaming blog. There are no ads or donate begging there.
I think
What you think doesn't matter. You are lost in the shuffle whereas I've had 1,000,000 views in the last year alone.
But like it’s host, it basically sux.
No, your post "sux."
Continually extolling the virtues of a rival game on a rival forum to try to ‘save us all’ from the horrors of nwn1 is pointless and a circular argument which serves no meaningful purpose other then creating a momentary forum ‘scrap’( which can be fun at times but gets annoying when it keeps dragging on)
Wrong. There is nothing wrong with defending Electron if it's getting shat on by ignorant posts such as "NWN2 sux". And one can mix and match between Infinity, Aurora and Electron as one likes. It is unfortunate that, to a notable degree, each engine's player-base is ignorant of the virtues of other engines. This is what happens when all you do is hang out in echo chamber forums.
All positions made clear, this doesn’t have to descend into trench war fare.
You think barging in with a loudmouth post like that is gonna stop me engaging in discussion and debate? Dream on.
by the sounds of it, it seems to me that the reason why people like NWN more than NWN 2 is because of the toolset
in my opinion, i enjoy NWN 2 more, at their cores i find myself enjoying the second game more
now to be perfectly honest, none of the campaigns ( NWN: OC, SoU, HotU, NWN2: OC,MotB ) to me feel all that great, all those campaigns to me feel boring and bland, but then NWN 2 did something, and they released SoZ
funny thing is, the first couple of times i tried SoZ, i hated it, i felt it was too much thinking and that it was too hard to get into and all that jazz, but every once in a while i would give it a chance, and slowly over time, i starting to like it more and more
the only disadvantage that SoZ has is that it's a very niche expansion, but coincidentally it was a perfect niche for me, and even more ironically, i saw reviews of what people hated about the game, and the things that those people hated are the things that i liked about SoZ
so with that, when it comes to NWN and NWN 2, i like NWN 2 more because of SoZ, SoZ was the winning factor that made me choose between the 2 games
now with this all being said there are some things that i have never done and they in theory could have changed the vote, but at this point it's doubtful, the things that i have never done are: played multiplayer in either game or went on these "servers" that people keep talking about, and i never tried the toolset for NWN ( or if i did i may have tried it once and never went back )
now even more with that being said, in my opinion both games have lots of faults against them, and no doubt have lots to be gained as well, but when i "tally up the score per se" to me, NWN 2 has less faults for my play experience and that makes NWN 2 the more desirable game
i dont think it will ever be possible to sell someone on the idea that NWN is better than NWN 2 or vice versa, i think it really comes down to how people like to play their RPG games, and what they like, or are looking for out of their games, and as i said before, based on how i like my RPG games, NWN 2 just does it better for me
For me, this is about features rather than which engine is better.
Someone is making NWN:EE and saying something to the effect of "I want this to be NWN2, NWN3 and NWN4."
Well, NWN2 already exists. Obsidian made some great additions to the Aurora base. Not every addition was great but some were; namely: FPC with marquee selection, OLM, XML, automatic inventory sorting, most of the visuals (not the anims), a much more powerful and versatile toolset, painted terrain, context sensitivity, quickcast menu, drag n drop to quickbar from charsheet/spellbook, 3.5 ruleset, enhanced pathing routine, reduction of spawn stutter, elimination of bounce delay etc.
Some of that might not fit Beamdog's vision of NWN:EE, but that's my point: this is why Electron will remain attractive for many players.
And yeah, love SoZ: the trading system, the crafting system, the sanboxy OLM, and the four-person party creation and companion (two with the Leadership feat for a party of six or six-person party creation by tweaking the module in the toolset, just like IWD).
Also, it has the best finale and boss of any campaign on either engine, imo.
No way is it better than MotB, though. It has way too many flaws. Not to say MotB is flawless but it is a masterpiece on par with PS:T. The only Aurora campaign that comes close to MotB in regards to reactivity is Swordflight, but the latter has a different kind of reactivity due to its design.
Imo, MotB is the best single-player experience on Electron and Swordflight is the best on Aurora. Nothing comes close to these two.
Goddam enormous windbag posts. Oh well I guess that’s what happens when a professional blogger enters the fray.
Professional? I don't need to make money off a gaming blog. There are no ads or donate begging there.
I think
What you think doesn't matter. You are lost in the shuffle whereas I've had 1,000,000 views in the last year alone.
But like it’s host, it basically sux.
No, your post "sux."
Continually extolling the virtues of a rival game on a rival forum to try to ‘save us all’ from the horrors of nwn1 is pointless and a circular argument which serves no meaningful purpose other then creating a momentary forum ‘scrap’( which can be fun at times but gets annoying when it keeps dragging on)
Wrong. There is nothing wrong with defending Electron if it's getting shat on by ignorant posts such as "NWN2 sux". And one can mix and match between Infinity, Aurora and Electron as one likes. It is unfortunate that, to a notable degree, each engine's player-base is ignorant of the virtues of other engines. This is what happens when all you do is hang out in echo chamber forums.
All positions made clear, this doesn’t have to descend into trench war fare.
You think barging in with a loudmouth post like that is gonna stop me engaging in discussion and debate? Dream on.
Yeah right ok. If you want me to take you seriously, post some links of stuff you’ve actually spent time making with both or either engine so I can see. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Yeah right ok. If you want me to take you seriously, post some links of stuff you’ve actually spent time making with both or either engine so I can see.
I am a commentator. I have linked to my articles. If you are claiming to be a content creator, link to your content.
Of course over the years and many uninstalls and reinstalls ive lost about 6 more modules, but luckily managed to find an old NWN2 one sitting in my dusty old nwn2 foldere and post it to my vault page just to point out I know what your talking about. Its self contained and used to pull about 6.5's on the old vault ratings. The amount of time it took me to make it was enormous and it was tiring, I did try a few more times, but never finished any more due to the amount of time required.
Just because you didn't complete your module doesn't mean "NWN2 sux", though. And devaluing me as a mere commentator just makes me want to devalue you as a half-assed builder (though I won't stoop to your level).
Basically, I could cite dozens of builders who went well beyond you, but you couldn't cite a single commentator with my quality and quantity of coverage for Infinity, Aurora or Electron, past of present.
As the Hall of Fame shows, there are quite a few people who managed to churn out complete campaigns in Electron's heyday.
And there are still people working on new campaigns and revising others: Kamal (Path of Evil and Bedine), Lance Botelle (The Scroll), Grog (Pilgrim), Tchos (Candle Cove), travus (Legacy of White Plume Mountain), Brendan Bellina (Farlong and Away), andysks (Return of the Exile) and rjshae (Hordes of the Underdark). There are a couple of major ones that I'm forgetting, too.
And builders like Lance and Kamal are hardly keeping things simple, which they could easily do to get quick recognition: instead, UI, terrain and mechanics modding that pushes Electron pretty far. You could never make those modules in the Aurora toolset. Hence, the attraction to Electron.
In any case, the benefits of NWN2 far often tend be touted about the visual aspects. Of which, I really don't care. I love text based adventures if they have good story. I love old games (goldbox for example) if they play well and have a good story.
Why I would care about any of the graphical enhancements that NWN2 has over NWN1 is not apparent to me. I understand that some people might find that a huge advantage for NWN2, but I don't really. That is on the side of my point that I've always felt the NWN2 graphics looked... Bad, for lack of a better word.
Not saying that NWN1 looks better, but that NWN1 was never about graphics.
Can graphical enhancements come to NWN:EE? Yes. Do I find Lilura's negativity towards the development of this game unfounded? Yes.
Do I think NWN2 is a bad game? No. Do I think it's better than NWN1? In some ways. Original Campaigns are definitely better crafted than what we have in NWN1, but once again I will reiterate, that was not what NWN1 was for.
NWN1's strengths lie in the custom community content. PW's, custom modules and other content created for the playerbase.
Does the Overland Map really add anything to the gameplay? No. Nothing that can't already be done with simple scripts. Sure you don't get 'real-time' visual overland map. (of which I'm certain if I wanted it, I could make it... but I digress). Real-time graphics for silly things like overland maps are not a selling benefit to the mass majority of NWN1 loyal players.
I'm sure you have strong opinions on this Lilura, but what I'm just trying to point out, is that you are a very small minority of people here. We don't care about NWN2 glitzy graphics, and we have been modding around the other limitations of NWN1 for a long time. NWN2, despite it's best attempts, will never be as popular or as accessible as NWN1. That is just the hard truth.
@Lilura what makes it so you like MotB better than SoZ? for me, the reason why i dont like MotB is the pacing, and im not a fan of that "slowly dying" mechanic, i played MotB a few times trying to like it, and then one time i kind of got far until i was in some dungeon that was just a big maze and i couldn't find my way and because of that dying mechanic it got to the point that i literally couldn't continue the game, after that, i never played MotB ever again
@Lilura Two things. In the UK there is a phrase - "Shifting the Goalposts". It means changing the rules halfway through. You just shifted the goalposts. You talk about world maps saying NwN is not capable of making them. Then when I challenge that statement you turn around and in effect say "But I meant this one type of world map". Now here's the thing. When NwN2 shipped it came with the simple type of world map that you decry. It wasn't until the second expansion that you got the full thing that you like. You are being somewhat disingenuous here.
There is a second mistake also. You appear to be making the error of assuming that just because something hasn't been done, it can't be done. Thinking about the capabilities of NwN, I believe that the type of overland (what about between islands at sea, spheres in the flow, etc. - bit of a misnomer) map that you favour is well within the capabilities of NwN. Not my capabilities as yet I might add. So what would need to be constructed in order to do this? Miniature map models, miniature creatures, a rudimentary form of AI and some scripted rules for overland travel. So why hasn't anyone done it for NwN? Speaking for myself, I lack the modelling skills and my scripting doesn't stretch to writing AI either. Even if they did I am not sure I would want to implement a system that stretches credulity anyway ("(Sid)Hey George lookee here. Thar be 3 gnolls sneaking through that forest. (George)What forest? (Sid)That one 60 miles away..."). As a piece of theatre, maybe. As a serious fast travel system, speaking for myself nah. It's just not K.I.S.S. is it? Over complicated.
Oh and I find your phrase "churned out" somewhat offensive. I use my imagination and meagre abilities to create stuff for the community. I don't just churn out any old rubbish.
Seeing how we're going to get creature and placeable scaling soon, the objects being too big won't be an issue for too much longer. Placeables representing cities would have to be made, sure, but I'm certain if someone made a functioning replica of the SoZ overland map system then people would make the models or directly port them from 2. I'm fairly certain that the type of ground you're walking on slowing or speeding you up is based on triggers, as the screen is basically entirely yellow when you enter Debug Mode, and the visible terrain differences itself can be handled by either a custom tileset or placeables. Interactions with other creatures on the map is just conversations, and its probably not difficult to create a system that spawns NPC's in X formation when they take you to the combat areas. I don't really like the SoZ Overland Map, it just wasn't fun at all IMO, but unless there's some nitty gritty I don't know about it seems perfectly possible.
@MadHatter I just checked, and I don't think that they were ported. Granted, half of NWN2's assets seem to have been ported over, and I wasn't overly thorough, so I might be wrong.
Many of us play both games and I think most consider NWN2 to have stronger single player games but lacks in everything else. A lot of pw players go between both games but ultimately come back to NWN for that reason.
NWN2 had the appeal of pre-loaded haks for character creation allowing for easy use of custom D&D classes and D&D races. Some NWN2 servers got popular for that reason and some paradoxically shot themselves in the foot by limiting or removing them. Players of NWN servers like Sinfar enjoy unparalleled levels of character and outfit customization as well as live area creation/customization that really emphasizes the strengths of NWN. The graphics of NWN could be better but I haven't used the standard models in many years and then again NWN2 graphics could be better too.
So assumptions that players only stick to one corner and aren't up to speed with an 11 year old game always comes across as clueless.
@Rifkin NWN is real time just so you know, there's no special kind of scripting in the SoZ map that wasn't already done several times by folks, probably before NWN2 even released. Putting a lot of scripted interaction ideas together in a map was a creative way to get around the area limits since the campaign scale was around 1:1000 I believe.
It's possible to make in NWN if you really wanted. On a 1.69 pw with such a map and the right extensions I shrunk my character down for giggles. When NWN EE adds the scaling with a patch it will be even easier.
@DerpCity Pretty much correct, you can find the module file in the install directory's module folder, it's called G_X2, the overland map area is g00_overland. Like you guessed triggers are used for the terrain with onenter, onexit, and heartbeat scripts. It's all pretty straight forward stuff.
Just because you didn't complete your module doesn't mean "NWN2 sux", though. And devaluing me as a mere commentator just makes me want to devalue you as a half-assed builder (though I won't stoop to your level).
Basically, I could cite dozens of builders who went well beyond you, but you couldn't cite a single commentator with my quality and quantity of coverage for Infinity, Aurora or Electron, past of present.
As the Hall of Fame shows, there are quite a few people who managed to churn out complete campaigns in Electron's heyday.
And there are still people working on new campaigns and revising others: Kamal (Path of Evil and Bedine), Lance Botelle (The Scroll), Grog (Pilgrim), Tchos (Candle Cove), travus (Legacy of White Plume Mountain), Brendan Bellina (Farlong and Away), andysks (Return of the Exile) and rjshae (Hordes of the Underdark). There are a couple of major ones that I'm forgetting, too.
And builders like Lance and Kamal are hardly keeping things simple, which they could easily do to get quick recognition: instead, UI, terrain and mechanics modding that pushes Electron pretty far. You could never make those modules in the Aurora toolset. Hence, the attraction to Electron.
Is ^^^ Kamal.
I pre-ordered nwn1:ee as soon as it was announced. I look forward to nwn1:ee and seeing what the community makes with it. There's much awesome content in nwn1 I wish I could do in nwn2.
For those who don't know much about Aurora or Electron, I would suggest taking the casual ramblings of forum-goers with a grain of salt. Go and read my blog for a more balanced overview/impression.
I very much did and your blog posts are well written, well researched, informative and often without bias.
However, it's strange to me that how you conduct yourself on your blog and how you conduct yourself in discussion are so diametrically opposed. You are a rational, well reasoned and informed individual so why the hyper aggressive, conflict focused interaction with the player community?
You can share an opinion and win people to your argument without having to tear other people down in the process.
Surely if you care enough to put so much time and effort into the series you want to help grow a healthy, active community that will financially support the series and afford further development of old and new content?
What you think doesn't matter. You are lost in the shuffle whereas I've had 1,000,000 views in the last year alone.
Well... I wasn't going further comment but if we are going to use the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.
I built 3 Persistent worlds for NWN.
I built 2 Persistent Worlds for NWN2.
I authored the "101 Things Wrong with NWN2" which was a collection of the bugs, community complaints and missing features shortly after the launch of NWN2 which in turn helped spur Obsidian to create the Community Representative's program (something other developers have since emulated to great success).
I was employed by Obsidian Entertainment for a year as a Community Representative where I triaged and championed the NWN2 communities needs, helped shape NWN2's patching priority and community requested features included in Mask of the Betrayer. The biggest bonus of that time was that I got to spend a year in the company of Chris Avellone discussing design philosophy. Something that has served me well throughout my career.
I compiled "The Complete Guide to Tamriel Lore" which has been the bible for Elder Scrolls lore aficionados. This led me to be talent scouted by Bethesda for Oblivion but this was an opportunity I could not pursue due to immigration complications but it was an honor to even be considered.
I also authored "The Ultimate Lighting Overhaul" which is a Skyrim file of the month and has the distinction of popularizing SweetFX as a competitor and compliment to ENB.
I have worked with numerous modding teams for NWN, spent a vast amount of time in NWN's early days on IRC with developers from both Bioware and Bethesda, some of whom are still good friends and all of which I have learned all I could from.
I have also had the good fortune of working for Capcom on Dragons Dogma and Street Fighter V. Ubisoft on For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege.
I have spent the past 15 years helping troubled video games meet community expectations while building award winning, paradigm shifting mods in my spare time.
I spent a vast amount of time in the company of legends both within the industry and from the modding community. My name even appears in the credits of your top 5 favorite video game of all time.
Yet given my experience... I would not have the audacity to claim I was some authority on NWN2 or that my opinion was somehow superior to others.
I am a small part of a larger community. My experience does not invalidate someone else's experience. It is a very small part of a larger picture and what is true from my time with a game is not going to be mirrored by everyone else within that community.
You have a very lovely blog with many well written articles and an obvious passion for this series of games. However, by shutting down discussion you make it far more difficult for the people who do make these decisions to figure out the root issues the community are facing.
If people have "no interest" (ignorance) in the most powerful and flexible cam in the genre (Electron Strategy cam), then that's their problem. I have highlighted its strengths which no one has been able to devalue since.
We had to pour through thousands of angry, incoherent, ill informed, poorly written, hate fueled rants post launch before we were able to figure out how the various camera controls could be tweaked to provide you with the Strategy Mode Camera as it currently stands. And before that the solution was just "Open everything, let them tweak everything and hopefully they can figure it out."
Without those angry, ill-informed posts then we would not have had the data points required to look past the complaints and try to find the root issue because the solution people need to fix the actual problem is not always the solution people think they want nor the problem they actual have.
As it stands NWN2's camera is still among it's top listed complaints. It matters little how great the potential is if it is not easily accessible to all. And NWN2's camera is far more accessible than it was but no where near what it needed to be.
If you want to let your imagination go to work, go and play tabletop with no visual points of reference. To say you'd rather look at a bunch of triangles and N64 visuals for "role-playing reasons" is just laughable.
Graphics that are enough to be representative but not to do all the work for the player are a well known technique in game design.
Silent Hill is a pretty famous example of how an engines limitations inspired peoples imaginations to read more into a game than was actually there.
Speak for yourself in regard to bias. My blog covers Infinity, Aurora and Electron. I don't succumb to petty partisanry like many members of each community. I praise the virtues and criticize the flaws of each engine. Please show me where you have done that, in-depth. Or where anyone else has, in the past or present.
I think most everyone is here for a love of the series as a whole. People may have their favorites and the ones they don't like as much but I highly doubt you could find anyone on this forum who doesn't own a couple of copies of NWN2. I have 4 including the GOG version and it's my least favorite of the collection.
Professional? I don't need to make money off a gaming blog. There are no ads or donate begging there.
While it does not make one a professional there are more ways to be paid than simple monetary compensation.
Some do it for the love of the community. Some because it's a creative outlet. Others for recognition. Others still because it makes them feel special or important.
I post on the Codex: you couldn't hurt my feelings if you called me "a c**t" and Trent came along and clicked "Insightful."
This makes me genuinely sad.
This is not the Codex. Nor is this the old Bioware community forum.
We are 15 years older. 15 years wiser. And I would hope, 15 years kinder.
Instead of striving to build a community where we can call each other "a c**t" and not care while screaming how superior our opinion is to everyone else's... Let's work to build a community where we can be respectful of one another and engage in healthy discussion as adults.
@voidofopinion I take my hat off to you. Your succinct reply means I no longer feel a need to post any further in this particular thread. You may not have said it all, just all that needed to be said.
Irrespective of the other worthy arguments and points of this thread-
If Beamdog did turn their attention to NWN2 some fateful day. it would be a day 1 purchase for me and other fans on Mac, since the expansions and modules are currently unplayable on that platform.
But that they are seperate products and toolsets seem fully settled.
Keep it civil people! Disagreements and debates are allowed on this site, but personal attacks are not! Make sure you keep the site rules in mind when posting.
Comments
I always liked both games. I bought the pre-order. I've been playing it and submitting bug reports because I want the game to succeed. Also, I may not personally agree with every design decision made, but I'm a big fan of Beamdog as company and want them to succeed as well.
With all of the in mind, there are things NWN2 did better than NWN like- to take a very non controversial subject t- the ability to auto download the appropriate hak packs when you select a new server. That would be nice to have in EE, and IIRC they've discussed it.
I personally think full party control is something NWN2 has over NWN. I've played through about ten single player modules since I've downloaded EE and in every single one of them I've run into issues, mostly combat related, by completely bone headed henchmen. In today's live stream Trent reiterated his conception of NWN is about friends playing together, not people controlling full parties... But I think the statistics on how people play the game (or the non ES version of it) lean heavily towards the single player experience. You would think, considering Trent's opinion on it, it's not a topic worth discussing, but it has been discussed enough that they added it to the Trello board.
Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it doesn't. But I would say, based on their willingness to even consider it, that it was a constructive conversation.
in my opinion, i enjoy NWN 2 more, at their cores i find myself enjoying the second game more
now to be perfectly honest, none of the campaigns ( NWN: OC, SoU, HotU, NWN2: OC,MotB ) to me feel all that great, all those campaigns to me feel boring and bland, but then NWN 2 did something, and they released SoZ
funny thing is, the first couple of times i tried SoZ, i hated it, i felt it was too much thinking and that it was too hard to get into and all that jazz, but every once in a while i would give it a chance, and slowly over time, i starting to like it more and more
the only disadvantage that SoZ has is that it's a very niche expansion, but coincidentally it was a perfect niche for me, and even more ironically, i saw reviews of what people hated about the game, and the things that those people hated are the things that i liked about SoZ
so with that, when it comes to NWN and NWN 2, i like NWN 2 more because of SoZ, SoZ was the winning factor that made me choose between the 2 games
now with this all being said there are some things that i have never done and they in theory could have changed the vote, but at this point it's doubtful, the things that i have never done are: played multiplayer in either game or went on these "servers" that people keep talking about, and i never tried the toolset for NWN ( or if i did i may have tried it once and never went back )
now even more with that being said, in my opinion both games have lots of faults against them, and no doubt have lots to be gained as well, but when i "tally up the score per se" to me, NWN 2 has less faults for my play experience and that makes NWN 2 the more desirable game
i dont think it will ever be possible to sell someone on the idea that NWN is better than NWN 2 or vice versa, i think it really comes down to how people like to play their RPG games, and what they like, or are looking for out of their games, and as i said before, based on how i like my RPG games, NWN 2 just does it better for me
Someone is making NWN:EE and saying something to the effect of "I want this to be NWN2, NWN3 and NWN4."
Well, NWN2 already exists. Obsidian made some great additions to the Aurora base. Not every addition was great but some were; namely: FPC with marquee selection, OLM, XML, automatic inventory sorting, most of the visuals (not the anims), a much more powerful and versatile toolset, painted terrain, context sensitivity, quickcast menu, drag n drop to quickbar from charsheet/spellbook, 3.5 ruleset, enhanced pathing routine, reduction of spawn stutter, elimination of bounce delay etc.
Some of that might not fit Beamdog's vision of NWN:EE, but that's my point: this is why Electron will remain attractive for many players.
And yeah, love SoZ: the trading system, the crafting system, the sanboxy OLM, and the four-person party creation and companion (two with the Leadership feat for a party of six or six-person party creation by tweaking the module in the toolset, just like IWD).
Also, it has the best finale and boss of any campaign on either engine, imo.
No way is it better than MotB, though. It has way too many flaws. Not to say MotB is flawless but it is a masterpiece on par with PS:T. The only Aurora campaign that comes close to MotB in regards to reactivity is Swordflight, but the latter has a different kind of reactivity due to its design.
Imo, MotB is the best single-player experience on Electron and Swordflight is the best on Aurora. Nothing comes close to these two.
Yeah right ok. If you want me to take you seriously, post some links of stuff you’ve actually spent time making with both or either engine so I can see. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Of course over the years and many uninstalls and reinstalls ive lost about 6 more modules, but luckily managed to find an old NWN2 one sitting in my dusty old nwn2 foldere and post it to my vault page just to point out I know what your talking about. Its self contained and used to pull about 6.5's on the old vault ratings. The amount of time it took me to make it was enormous and it was tiring, I did try a few more times, but never finished any more due to the amount of time required.
https://neverwintervault.org/user/991/Content
Basically, I could cite dozens of builders who went well beyond you, but you couldn't cite a single commentator with my quality and quantity of coverage for Infinity, Aurora or Electron, past of present.
As the Hall of Fame shows, there are quite a few people who managed to churn out complete campaigns in Electron's heyday.
And there are still people working on new campaigns and revising others: Kamal (Path of Evil and Bedine), Lance Botelle (The Scroll), Grog (Pilgrim), Tchos (Candle Cove), travus (Legacy of White Plume Mountain), Brendan Bellina (Farlong and Away), andysks (Return of the Exile) and rjshae (Hordes of the Underdark). There are a couple of major ones that I'm forgetting, too.
And builders like Lance and Kamal are hardly keeping things simple, which they could easily do to get quick recognition: instead, UI, terrain and mechanics modding that pushes Electron pretty far. You could never make those modules in the Aurora toolset. Hence, the attraction to Electron.
In any case, the benefits of NWN2 far often tend be touted about the visual aspects. Of which, I really don't care. I love text based adventures if they have good story. I love old games (goldbox for example) if they play well and have a good story.
Why I would care about any of the graphical enhancements that NWN2 has over NWN1 is not apparent to me. I understand that some people might find that a huge advantage for NWN2, but I don't really. That is on the side of my point that I've always felt the NWN2 graphics looked... Bad, for lack of a better word.
Not saying that NWN1 looks better, but that NWN1 was never about graphics.
Can graphical enhancements come to NWN:EE? Yes. Do I find Lilura's negativity towards the development of this game unfounded? Yes.
Do I think NWN2 is a bad game? No. Do I think it's better than NWN1? In some ways. Original Campaigns are definitely better crafted than what we have in NWN1, but once again I will reiterate, that was not what NWN1 was for.
NWN1's strengths lie in the custom community content. PW's, custom modules and other content created for the playerbase.
Does the Overland Map really add anything to the gameplay? No. Nothing that can't already be done with simple scripts. Sure you don't get 'real-time' visual overland map. (of which I'm certain if I wanted it, I could make it... but I digress). Real-time graphics for silly things like overland maps are not a selling benefit to the mass majority of NWN1 loyal players.
I'm sure you have strong opinions on this Lilura, but what I'm just trying to point out, is that you are a very small minority of people here. We don't care about NWN2 glitzy graphics, and we have been modding around the other limitations of NWN1 for a long time. NWN2, despite it's best attempts, will never be as popular or as accessible as NWN1. That is just the hard truth.
I keep trying to start SotU to eventually play HotU but I never make it far @_@
But I see a lot of people saying NWN1 is great when I think it's the weakest of the D&D CPRGs. I'm probably missing something.
Or go online and try out one of the many Persistent World servers. This is where the power of NWN1 shines.
I should note, you most likely will need to download HAK packs to be able to join most PW servers these days.
There is a second mistake also. You appear to be making the error of assuming that just because something hasn't been done, it can't be done. Thinking about the capabilities of NwN, I believe that the type of overland (what about between islands at sea, spheres in the flow, etc. - bit of a misnomer) map that you favour is well within the capabilities of NwN. Not my capabilities as yet I might add. So what would need to be constructed in order to do this? Miniature map models, miniature creatures, a rudimentary form of AI and some scripted rules for overland travel. So why hasn't anyone done it for NwN? Speaking for myself, I lack the modelling skills and my scripting doesn't stretch to writing AI either. Even if they did I am not sure I would want to implement a system that stretches credulity anyway ("(Sid)Hey George lookee here. Thar be 3 gnolls sneaking through that forest. (George)What forest? (Sid)That one 60 miles away..."). As a piece of theatre, maybe. As a serious fast travel system, speaking for myself nah. It's just not K.I.S.S. is it? Over complicated.
Oh and I find your phrase "churned out" somewhat offensive. I use my imagination and meagre abilities to create stuff for the community. I don't just churn out any old rubbish.
TR
NWN2 had the appeal of pre-loaded haks for character creation allowing for easy use of custom D&D classes and D&D races. Some NWN2 servers got popular for that reason and some paradoxically shot themselves in the foot by limiting or removing them. Players of NWN servers like Sinfar enjoy unparalleled levels of character and outfit customization as well as live area creation/customization that really emphasizes the strengths of NWN. The graphics of NWN could be better but I haven't used the standard models in many years and then again NWN2 graphics could be better too.
So assumptions that players only stick to one corner and aren't up to speed with an 11 year old game always comes across as clueless.
@Rifkin NWN is real time just so you know, there's no special kind of scripting in the SoZ map that wasn't already done several times by folks, probably before NWN2 even released. Putting a lot of scripted interaction ideas together in a map was a creative way to get around the area limits since the campaign scale was around 1:1000 I believe.
It's possible to make in NWN if you really wanted. On a 1.69 pw with such a map and the right extensions I shrunk my character down for giggles. When NWN EE adds the scaling with a patch it will be even easier.
I pre-ordered nwn1:ee as soon as it was announced. I look forward to nwn1:ee and seeing what the community makes with it. There's much awesome content in nwn1 I wish I could do in nwn2.
However, it's strange to me that how you conduct yourself on your blog and how you conduct yourself in discussion are so diametrically opposed. You are a rational, well reasoned and informed individual so why the hyper aggressive, conflict focused interaction with the player community?
You can share an opinion and win people to your argument without having to tear other people down in the process.
Surely if you care enough to put so much time and effort into the series you want to help grow a healthy, active community that will financially support the series and afford further development of old and new content? Well... I wasn't going further comment but if we are going to use the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.
- I built 3 Persistent worlds for NWN.
- I built 2 Persistent Worlds for NWN2.
- I authored the "101 Things Wrong with NWN2" which was a collection of the bugs, community complaints and missing features shortly after the launch of NWN2 which in turn helped spur Obsidian to create the Community Representative's program (something other developers have since emulated to great success).
- I was employed by Obsidian Entertainment for a year as a Community Representative where I triaged and championed the NWN2 communities needs, helped shape NWN2's patching priority and community requested features included in Mask of the Betrayer. The biggest bonus of that time was that I got to spend a year in the company of Chris Avellone discussing design philosophy. Something that has served me well throughout my career.
- I compiled "The Complete Guide to Tamriel Lore" which has been the bible for Elder Scrolls lore aficionados. This led me to be talent scouted by Bethesda for Oblivion but this was an opportunity I could not pursue due to immigration complications but it was an honor to even be considered.
- I also authored "The Ultimate Lighting Overhaul" which is a Skyrim file of the month and has the distinction of popularizing SweetFX as a competitor and compliment to ENB.
- I have worked with numerous modding teams for NWN, spent a vast amount of time in NWN's early days on IRC with developers from both Bioware and Bethesda, some of whom are still good friends and all of which I have learned all I could from.
- I have also had the good fortune of working for Capcom on Dragons Dogma and Street Fighter V. Ubisoft on For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege.
- I have spent the past 15 years helping troubled video games meet community expectations while building award winning, paradigm shifting mods in my spare time.
- I spent a vast amount of time in the company of legends both within the industry and from the modding community. My name even appears in the credits of your top 5 favorite video game of all time.
Yet given my experience... I would not have the audacity to claim I was some authority on NWN2 or that my opinion was somehow superior to others.I am a small part of a larger community. My experience does not invalidate someone else's experience. It is a very small part of a larger picture and what is true from my time with a game is not going to be mirrored by everyone else within that community.
You have a very lovely blog with many well written articles and an obvious passion for this series of games. However, by shutting down discussion you make it far more difficult for the people who do make these decisions to figure out the root issues the community are facing. We had to pour through thousands of angry, incoherent, ill informed, poorly written, hate fueled rants post launch before we were able to figure out how the various camera controls could be tweaked to provide you with the Strategy Mode Camera as it currently stands. And before that the solution was just "Open everything, let them tweak everything and hopefully they can figure it out."
Without those angry, ill-informed posts then we would not have had the data points required to look past the complaints and try to find the root issue because the solution people need to fix the actual problem is not always the solution people think they want nor the problem they actual have.
As it stands NWN2's camera is still among it's top listed complaints. It matters little how great the potential is if it is not easily accessible to all. And NWN2's camera is far more accessible than it was but no where near what it needed to be. Graphics that are enough to be representative but not to do all the work for the player are a well known technique in game design.
Silent Hill is a pretty famous example of how an engines limitations inspired peoples imaginations to read more into a game than was actually there. I think most everyone is here for a love of the series as a whole. People may have their favorites and the ones they don't like as much but I highly doubt you could find anyone on this forum who doesn't own a couple of copies of NWN2. I have 4 including the GOG version and it's my least favorite of the collection. While it does not make one a professional there are more ways to be paid than simple monetary compensation.
Some do it for the love of the community. Some because it's a creative outlet. Others for recognition. Others still because it makes them feel special or important.
We all get "paid" in some way. You have no idea how right you are. This makes me genuinely sad.
This is not the Codex. Nor is this the old Bioware community forum.
We are 15 years older. 15 years wiser. And I would hope, 15 years kinder.
Instead of striving to build a community where we can call each other "a c**t" and not care while screaming how superior our opinion is to everyone else's... Let's work to build a community where we can be respectful of one another and engage in healthy discussion as adults.
TR
If Beamdog did turn their attention to NWN2 some fateful day. it would be a day 1 purchase for me and other fans on Mac, since the expansions and modules are currently unplayable on that platform.
But that they are seperate products and toolsets seem fully settled.
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